


Run from the Country and Run from the City

by edens_jorts



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e162 A Cosy Cabin (The Magnus Archives), Jewish Martin Blackwood, M/M, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edens_jorts/pseuds/edens_jorts
Summary: “It’s alright; I’m good at waiting.”Martin has some stuff to work out, and maybe the apocalypse isn't the place to do that!
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	Run from the Country and Run from the City

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this is the first (and maybe only!) fic I'm posting on here bc I worked hard on it and want people to actually see it! I love episode 162, and thought it would be interesting to write that time period/concept from the perspective of Martin instead of Jon! It's pretty short and sad but man that's just how I like it. (also yes the title is a lyric from "runs in the family")  
> I hope you enjoy! :3

“It’s alright; I’m good at waiting.”

They’d been at the safehouse for no more than a week before the Change. It had felt like a fresh start. Clean and new, the crackling of the fire washing all of the thoughts of the house’s _original purpose_ out of their heads. They were in love, and that’s what he cared about. Anyway, he always _did_ want to have his own cottage.

But now it felt different. _Obviously._

He’d been out walking when it actually happened. Hands in his pockets and bundled up he walked past pastures and fields, beautiful in the midday sun.

And then it happened. And it was just like that. Everything was _wrong_ suddenly. It wasn’t an obvious change on the outside -- he could still see the sun and clouds above him and the grass beneath his feet, but he _felt_ different. Like the air around him had been electrified -- like every cell in his body had been taken apart and reassembled. And he knew the sky was looking at him. And he knew the ground was softer than before. And he knew he was irreversibly changed. And he knew he had to get back to the house. Before everything could swallow him whole.

He knew the scene would be horrible one way or another. His love and his home broken and nothing he could do about it.

Nothing but try to make Jon smile through whatever had just happened.

...

It’s weird how easily things can become the new normal. A few of what felt like days went by with this new world outside, and it just looked like a storm. Of course he knew what was really going on, but at least he didn’t Know it. At least.

How to make the person you love, that you’ve been through hell and back with, smile through the pain? He didn’t know. And he didn’t know how to talk about how he felt, because _of course_ he didn’t have anywhere close to the worst of this. He got out of the Prentiss attack virtually unscathed, he didn’t go to the Unknowing with the others, he was in this new world, _scared_ , but not as scared as the people outside, not as scared as Jon, who he saw lying awake with that look of fear and satisfaction, seeing the guilt that had taken residence behind his eyes since long before he joined the archives. All things considered, Martin had a pretty lucky break.

Physically.

Mentally, he was a wreck. A mix of memories and mourning burning his chest, but he’d been taught to keep it down. Others have it worse, his mother had told him. Others have it worse, he told himself in the mirror -- whether it was to make him feel better or to make him feel smaller, he didn’t know. And he didn’t know whether he was imagining or remembering the musky fog creeping around him when he spoke.

What he did know was the seeping comfort of the house around him. It felt _right_ in here, but not in the way it did before the Change. Now the warm nostalgia was replaced with the cold breath of the house. Life had not been taken away from it, it had just changed.

But hadn’t they all.

 _‘Don’t look out the window or they’ll see you!’_ his mind yelled. Who the ‘they’ in question was was never addressed. All he knew was that in here, with his love, he’d be safe. If he didn’t look, he couldn’t see everything waiting for him outside, and the heavy curtains stayed pulled tight. Had the curtains always been that rusty red?

The voice he ignored was the one telling him that they could see him in here too. He could still feel the dormant watching he got used to while working in the archives. For all of the hiding they could do, everyone knew where they were. If he closed his eyes, sometimes he could see the people outside, clawing at the walls, trying to get in. He checked the locks on the doors.

The reason he couldn’t stay in this house was because it felt right. He could sit still with his lover, clutching each other for eternity here. He could become one with the rotting wood under the peeling wallpaper (was it peeling before?) with him and never bat an eye. Because, in here, we’re safe.

But he knew he had already waited too long. He knew what happened to those who waited too long to leave.

...

He sat on the bed, packing bags by himself. He did this alone, so no one had to know that that’s what he did every time he went to a new place. Clothing, supplies, food, and other assorted things they couldn’t live without. Just in case.

Hide or flee. He was ready for both, although the inaction he had let sink into his bones led him to crave the comfort of hiding away. Claustrophobia only hurts when you crave the outside. He felt a clock ticking away with every heartbeat they shared in this living house. Every second it drew them in closer, digesting them, absorbing their lives. Every second the walls seemed to be thicker.

Every second, his mind did the calculations of when it’d be _too late_ , when this illusion of choice would be taken away from him entirely.

He tries not to let his mind wander to what he could have done to stop the Change. If he had just stayed in the house, maybe he could have done something. He didn’t know how he could have, but somehow he knew that he had some form of culpability. He always did. And if the world ending wasn’t his fault, the state that Jon was in was. He was a good caretaker. Always had been. Swallow down your pride and your feelings and you’ll be fine, and the others will finally love you.

He was good at waiting.


End file.
